Compilation Album Review: "Take 40 Australia #1"

Compilation: Take 40 Australia #1
Released: 1991 – Mushroom
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: None
Top ten singles: 7
Best track: "Last Train To Trancentral" by The K.L.F.
Hidden gem: I've heard all of these songs before. I listened to Take 40 Australia every week in 1991!

Well yes, I did. 1991, the year this CD came out, was the year I started listening to it. I did this for two reasons: to tape my favourite songs off the radio, and also because for some reason which I have never been able to ascertain, when they did the Top 40 countdown they always did it for the previous week and not the current week. I didn't mind the one week discrepancy because it meant that if I didn't get up early enough to catch the Top 20 on Rage, I could use Take 40 to fill in the blank spaces in my Top 20 chart book the following week. What a saddo I was!

Also: I was in Year 8. What else was I gonna do on a Saturday evening – homework?? Get real, man!

Anyway, it was essential listening and the host, Barry Bissell, was always entertaining. He'd hosted the Saturday evening show from its inception in 1984 until 2004. The show was eventually cancelled in 2016. But thirty years ago, I'd have my radio tuned to 6PM as it was then, blank cassette tape at the ready.

I've got a soft spot for the pop music of 1991. It was a good time to follow the charts, and probably the midpoint of a golden age, of sorts. The vast majority of the songs on my Top 100 of All Time list are from the years 1990-1992 alone. I had just started high school and was discovering new cool songs every single week. It was an exciting time!

I'm not sure why they waited seven years to put out a Take 40 compilation, but it's funny that it happened to come out in the year I started listening to the show. They called it Take 40 Australia #1 but there aren't any number 1 singles on it. Oh well. There was no Take 40 Australia #2, either, although there were four more Take 40 compilations released between 1995 and 2003.

There's a lot of Australian content on this album – it is a compilation for an Australian radio show after all – and it's Noiseworks that kick things off with their last big hit single "Hot Chilli Woman". I don't mind it, but it was the long-delayed follow-up single to "Freedom", which is my favourite Noiseworks song.

Then it's "Hey Stoopid", an anti-drug song by Alice Cooper. In 1991, I didn't know who this dude was, and only from reading Smash Hits did I discover that he'd been around since the '70s and did mock-theatrics on stage like getting guillotined and whatnot. Crazy, man. It would be another year before I saw him in Wayne's World and thought "It's the 'Hey Stoopid' guy!" We're not worthy!!

Who's next? Hmm, it's Transvision Vamp. "If Looks Could Kill" is hardly one of their typical rawk n' rawl numbers. From what I recall they basically disappeared after this single and the parent album wasn't up to scratch. Then comes Kylie Minogue and "Shocked", and no, she still can't sing. She is the second-best vocalist on this track. The featured rapper Jazzy P is best. Isn't it a bit weird how the final chorus fades out so abruptly? Get it together, Stock Aitken Waterman!

After Kate Ceberano, C+C Music Factory and Yothu Yindi, fine dance/pop singles all, we get to the mighty KLF. Those guys really knew how to put out brilliant and catchy pop music, be it dance bangers, stadium house anthems, synth/trance, or more rock-pop-electro stuff – and their featured rappers were always great, the one here being the late Ricardo Da Force. The synth/string break on this song is one of the best interludes ever. All the elements of a hit pop single are present here: it reached number 2 in their native UK, and number 5 in Australia.

Now it's time to rock it out Kiwi-style, bro! Push Push was a New Zealand rock band that had moderate success here with "Trippin'", and I really like that crazy high note the singer hits in the second verse, but the video stands out to me because the drummer is wearing a T-shirt with "Nirvana" written on it. I didn't know who Nirvana were in mid-1991, but I soon would. I remember asking this kid before school one day if he'd ever heard of Push Push and he just made this weird double hip-thrust motion and went "Uhh-uhh!" What a degenerate.

There's more rock for us with Roxus – didja like what I did there – and "Bad Boys" which was given more than its fair share of exposure via the Summer Bay Diner jukebox in several episodes of Home And Away. Then comes Jimmy Barnes with some mid-tempo rock and mandatory throat-shredding high notes. I don't think I've heard this song in 30 years. Eh, s'alright I s'pose. Deborah Conway's "It's Only the Beginning" is quite a nice tune, although I didn't really care for it 30 years ago. Ditto Daryl Braithwaite's "Higher Than Hope". He's got much better songs than "The Horses", which is sappy sentimental rubbish, in my opinion. "Rise" is his best song. This is NOT negotiable.

"99 Reasons" by Jo Beth Taylor is another song I hadn't heard since its release 30 years ago, and for (99) good reason(s): it's irredeemable donkey twaddle. I remember she copped a fair bit of flak in the Letters page of Smash Hits for slagging off Vanilla Ice and Roxette when she reviewed the singles. That was a bit rich when both of those artists had had number 1 singles when this junk only reached number 31, and that's more than it deserved.

Let's hit the Skip button and go next to "Unity" by Sound Unlimited Posse, a song I had only heard once until now. It's not as good as "Kickin' To The Undersound" – maybe a recognizable sample might have improved it. After that, down the back end, comes "What Comes Naturally" by Sheena Easton which, in reaching number 4, makes it the equal highest-charting track on this disc. I know, I'm as shocked as you. I thought this song was rather naff in 1991. I was only 13 and had no time for these 'sex kitten' antics.

The last two songs on here are rap singles that charted in the top 10, and they're both rather good: "Now That We Found Love" by Heavy D & The Boyz, and "Ring Ring Ring" by De La Soul which is the other song that reached number 4. Still a great track. I had the hook as my answering machine message in the late '90s.

Well, there may have been no number 1s on here but Take 40 #1 is still a solid compilation. Plenty of songs that deserve repeat listens, especially if you want to be transported back to 1991. In a metaphorical sense, that is. Otherwise you'll just have to wait for time travel to be invented.

Rating: 7/10

Making rubber stamps

This post is way late, as I started making these nearly a year ago, but here are a couple of rubber stamps I put together. I got some 95 x 79 mm pieces of rubber, each 1mm thick, from one of those art reject stores, where they recycle odds and ends for craft purposes. I got them in the distant past when Melbourne's shops were actually open. Anyway, these floppy pieces of rubber sat around in my house for a long time, until I suddenly thought "Hey, I need a cheese sandwich." And also "Hey, those bits of rubber would be great to make stamps with."

In January 2014 at the City Library in Melbourne – the same month as my comic artwork was part of an exhibition there – I joined in a stamping workshop where the girls running the session made their own stamps out of erasers. I've always liked rubber stamps, date stamps, postage stamps, and the actor Terence Stamp is pretty good as well.

Well, enough talk, let's carve up some rubber.

This photo and the one below were taken on December 22, 2020, which means this so-called spontaneous stamp-making exercise has taken nearly 10 months to see completion! Some things have to take a back seat in the production bus, you know? Anyway, I liked this design of a polar bear, a simple line drawing which used to feature on a badge I used to own. So I drew it on a scrap of paper and then used pencil lead to transfer it in reverse onto the rubber.

Next I used lino-carving tools to carve the image in relief onto the rubber. Don't be a fool and do the carving on top of your graphics tablet as seen above. This photo is for demonstration purposes only.

Once that's done, get out your scissors and bull glue and cut the designs out. Using the scissors, of course, not the glue. I'm fairly sure glue wouldn't be of much use in cutting tasks. For the second stamp I did a garbage bin. I used to draw them on my folders in high school for some reason. So, let's glue the rubber onto the blocks of wood and see how they stamp up, shall we?

Ver' nice. My polar bear does look a bit sheepish, but I'm pretty happy with the result. Be sure to check this blog in another 10 months to see if I've made any more!

My Grand Final prediction from 12 years ago

Take a look at this Photoshopped image. I made it way back in September 2009 for a friend's birthday card.

 
As you can see, he was/is a Richmond Tigers supporter. And as you can also see, it has today's date on it. I was predicting 12 years ago that Richmond would win a Grand Final in the year 2021, which was a pretty long shot as far as predictions go, because Richmond weren't all that good in 2009.

But! It wasn't all bad, because I managed to get the date of the match correct. And also because Richmond managed to play in, and win, three Grand Finals before 2021, even if they were nowhere to be seen this year.

Bonus points: Can you spot me in the image?

The Terrace, Mooroolbark: Frozen in time

Mooroolbark is a north-eastern suburb of Melbourne which apparently experienced its biggest growth in the 1980s and '90s. It's most known (to an interloper like me at least) for having this weird setup where three roundabouts are squished together. Just look at this abomination:

Seriously, how are you even meant to tackle this?

But that's not the purpose of this post. I came to Mooroolbark to see a shopping centre called The Terrace. Locals all know about it, but I hadn't heard of the place until just over a month ago, when I read on Reddit about it. It's a shopping centre that is not exactly disused or abandoned, but fell out of use years ago, yet continues to keep operating.

After I read the comments about it on Reddit I came across this video by Tim Norman of Stormofilms which was made in May 2019, and which gave me some additional information (and let me see what The Terrace was like in pre-COVID times).

The Terrace was built in 1981, right across the road from Mooroolbark Village (a small row of shops along Brice Avenue), and adjacent to Hookey Park. It opened in 1982, and housed 24 stores such as Treasurway, Replace-A-Film, Microbee (a shop that sold 8-bit computers), and Bojangles Music — very '80s name there — later known as CD Haven.

Here's what The Terrace looks like from the outside. It's got a large car park with 900 spaces, to service commuters using Mooroolbark station across the road, but it's pretty much empty. The surroundings at the front look tidy, with no litter or graffiti, and neatly-trimmed hedges.

That's not to say graffiti has never been a problem at The Terrace — the public toilets inside have been the worst hit over the years. One year they spent $26,000 on cleaning up the toilets alone. Now they keep them locked to keep out vandals and druggies.

You'll notice from that large archway sign that there is a Bendigo Bank on the premises, formerly a Westpac. That sign has covered up many smaller signs which can be seen in Tim Norman's video, which listed each business found inside. Coming up the ramp, you find yourself at the sliding doors of the main entrance.

Unlike most suburban shopping centres, The Terrace has not been refurbished or renovated at all since it was built (with the possible exception of the childcare centre, which seemed tacked-on to the side after the fact). As a result, the interior decor is just as it was back in 1982, with the patterned light-brown lino untouched, as well as the ceilings. The fluorescent-tube lights were on, despite no one being around, and a lot of light actually gets in thanks to the large skylight which you can see above. 

Apparently there are a number of poems written by students stuck to the window of the centre kiosk, which are "post-apocalyptically depressing", according to one Reddit user.

On the right in the above photo is Stay Tuned Electronics, which still has CRT television sets and record players on its shelves. Most of these shops are shuttered up and only 12 of them are open — in fact none of them are currently open because Melbourne is under lockdown.

The Terrace was a busy place once. Then-PM Bob Hawke showed up there in 1987 for some event, but apparently its busiest day was when childrens' TV character Humphrey B. Bear appeared live there. (Poor old Bob. Having to settle for being The Terrace's second-biggest guest star to a man in a sweaty costume made of recycled bathmats.) Anyway, in its heyday The Terrace hosted a number of events, footy players giving handballing lessons to kids, and even a food festival in recent years, even with some of the shops empty.

I am not sure when exactly The Terrace began to decline, but it was probably well on its way by 2017 when its supermarket closed. There was also once a garden centre there. The entrance to it was a large roller door, which you can see on the left in the photo below. Mikayla van Loon reported in the Lilydale Star Mail of July 20, 2021 that Chirnside Park shopping centre, which offered more variety, as well as heating and air-conditioning (which The Terrace apparently doesn't have?), is one of the reasons The Terrace fell behind. A larger shopping centre, Eastland, isn't too far away either.

It seems The Terrace's shop owners couldn't compete with the customers heading over to Chirnside Park, so they either relocated there or closed down.

The next photo is the loading bay for the supermarket, which as you can see was once called KFL. There was a bit of graffiti here, but no more than your typical Melbourne bus stop, really. One tag said "Oops!" which I found rather amusing (though infantile).

Next you see here Terry's Meats, the butcher on the corner. It closed in May 2019, not long after Tim Norman filmed his video. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because of the "2 Dollar" sign you see here — another relic of the past. This isn't the only piece of old signage still visible: if you look closely you can still make out where the "Treasurway" used to be on the front brickwork.

With Melbourne's property market being the way it is, why hasn't this unused retail space been taken over by developers? Why has this shopping centre stood largely untouched since the day it was made? I don't know anything about how strata title works, but from what I understand, Coles supermarkets owns a number of shops in the centre (the Lilydale Star Mail says it is "a couple"), and have prevented any redevelopments from taking place. Otherwise their rivals Woolworths would move in to challenge the supremacy of the Coles across the road from The Terrace.

After the supermarket there (which at the time was an IGA) closed down in May 2017 — a significant loss for the ailing Terrace, as its major drawcard was no longer there — Woolworths made an $11 million bid to redevelop the site, which was then stymied by a competitor. I wonder who that could have been? 

This wasn't the only bid Woolworths has made; in fact they have made several since 2016. But it has been difficult to get everyone on board, since each shop is individually owned. And apparently every time Woolies makes such a bid, the price goes up, so they seem to have got fed up with the idea.

So, as long as Coles holds ownership, no redevelopment can ever take place. And so The Terrace still stands there. And stands there.

But who knows? Right at this moment the Mooroolbark train station is being rebuilt as a result of Victoria's level crossing removal project, so when the new station is built, perhaps the topic of redeveloping The Terrace site will be brought up.

Until then, it will remain frozen in time.

TOKYO 2020 – The Closing

And after 17 days, it's all over. Tonight the Games of the XXXII Olympiad conclude, and all things considered, it seems to have gone very well. Obviously the roar of the crowd is integral to an Olympic final, but there have been plenty of memorable moments without it. The Games hit an emotional note that has been missing from many peoples' lives.

I'm not a sporty guy – you'll never see me sweating it out in a field. But I do enjoy watching the Olympic Games, and not just to see GOLD GOLD GOLD FOR 'STRAYA either. Couldn't give a toss about that. Take yer medal tally and shove it up yer catflap, matey. No, I watch it for the drama, and the raw human emotion, not just the joy but the defeat, the adversity and the heartbreak. The upsets, the records being broken, and the medal winners appearing in breakfast cereal ads for the next three years.

The theme of the closing ceremony is 'Worlds We Share' which feels more optimistic than the opening ceremony. The theme for that was 'United By Emotions', which deals with people sharing moments they cannot be physically together for. The opening on July 23 was more about history and tradition; it acknowledged the impact of COVID, the role of essential workers, and the fact that 30 year old tunes from Sonic games still warm the cockles of my shrivelled joyless soul. So! How will the closing differ from this? Will it be more celebratory than its precursor? Come and join me, and let's find out. Ha~i, sutaato!

 

August 8, 8:03pm (Japan time). And we're off. Please stand for some random salaryman Prince Akihino. The music playing in the background is from Tokyo Story. I've never seen that film. I know, I know – I have no right to call myself Japanese, right? The melancholy music reinforces the sad sight of the empty stadium seats.

8:08. Kimigayo time. Then the flag-bearers enter. As stated at the opening ceremony, the Olympic motto has been modified to "Faster, higher, stronger, together". Hopefully the Canadians won't mistake the male Australian flag-bearer for a woman this time, the wallies.

8:21. The athletes now enter. Hey, there's the flag of the Philippines, who won their first gold medal at Tokyo 2020 after competing in the Olympics since 1924. In womens' weightlifting, no less. There were three countries who won their first ever Olympic medal at these games: Burkina Faso, San Marino, and Turkmenistan. People of all nations intermingling in Tokyo, relaxed and having fun — it reminds me of my JET Programme orientation 20 years ago! Except these guys will be heading off to quarantine and not to distribute Mr. Sparkle in their home prefecture.

8:43. All is quiet in the stadium as particles of light cascade from the stadium roof to form the Olympic rings. I have no idea how they did that. Good stuff.

8:46. A band starts playing, and hey! It's the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra! I remember them from my days living in Japan. Someone made a great call in getting these guys to play. Their upbeat, high-energy set is perfect for this atmosphere. One of the songs in their medley is Kyu Sakamoto's "Ue O Muite Arukou", and it's the band playing, but with Sakamoto's original vocals. Very cool.

Later note: I've since seen comments criticizing this choice of music, saying it "wasn't Japanese enough". What would they have preferred? Enka?

9:05. The medal presentation ceremonies for the womens' and mens' marathons, both won by Kenya. Good on yer, Eliud Kipchoge.

9:33. Wait — did I hear my former home prefecture Gifu mentioned?! Well, yes actually. There's a snippet of video showing the Gujo-odori, accompanied by a song called "Harukoma" which I still remember even now. Cutting back to the stadium, a live singer performs a song for the O-Bon festival dance. I didn't think the Sonic song could be topped, but my former home town region of Gujo being part of the ceremony is the definite highlight of the night.

9:44. The Olympic flag is handed over from Tokyo to Paris. Bonne chance, Parisiennes. Better get those rioters sorted out in the next 3 years, eh? And give those anti-vaxxers a dose of the old water cannon while you're at it.

10:18. The segments of the cauldron close up as the flame goes out, followed by a final blast of fireworks and the word 'ARIGATO' lit up on a dot matrix-style LED screen. It would be nice if the screen also included a picture of the coronavirus with the 'middle finger' emoji next to it, but I can see why that idea wouldn't be popular.

And now, it's all over. Go home. Do something else with your lives. Be great. Eat your vegetables. Brush your teeth. Arigato.

Thanks to Mai for the first two photos.